Harder, faster

So, yesterday, the PM made a speech about her Government's aims for Britain leaving the EU. The speech itself was heavily leaked the day before to most of the print press, so there were few surprises. However, this that this was not presented to both Houses of Parliament first, and neither was this just a policy speech, this was the policy. There will be no white papers or bills. Just this, it means that any claims about restoring Parliamentary Sovereignty are as hollow as her stated aims.

A bad deal is worse than no deal, she said in trying out out-baloney Noel Edmonds. In reality, the best deal for Britain is the status quo, and the further you move away from that the worse the deal will get. Probably the truth in why the hardest of Brexits is the aim, is that is the easiest to deliver, in that it will be the one the EU will be less likely to block. Some of the things Britain says it wants, and if it doesn't get, then Britain will be turned into an offshore tax haven. Threatening your current trading partners with a trade war if you don't get your way is not the best position to start. But then, this position is going to do a whole lot of damage to the British economy, estimates vary from losing 4% of GDP per year then going upwards.

As ever, it will be reality that will decide what the substance of any Brexit deal will be; from what Britain wants, and what Johnny Foreigner wants too. Because it seems to have escaped the notice of the brave Brexiteers that there will be demands from the other side of the table. We are told that this being the case, Britain will just walk away. Walk away to, hopefully, WTO rules and tariffs. It is only an assumption that britain can carry over the tariffs currently enjoyed by Britain and the other 27 EU States; if we have to negotiate these from scratch with the other 161 members and the EU, then prepare that to take years and years. In the meantime, huge tariffs and expert rules that will have to be applied. And any deals that can be struck will have to abide by existing WTO rules, including deals with car manufacturers with sweeteners. Even those will have to be discloses to show that no rules have been broken.

See, international commerce is no longer for the Privateers of antiquity, there are rules, agreements, quota, no tariff arrangements, free trade agreements and so on that will all have to be abided by, or negotiated from scratch. That Britain is already in the world's largest free trade union, with access to many of the world's most wealthy consumers is ignored by the Brexiteers and the fearless members of the printed press.

In order to even get to negotiating the framework for Brexit with the EU, the Government will have to abide by the ruling of the Appeal Court on the following matters

1. Royal Prerogative in triggering Article 50
2. If not, and Parliamentary approval is needed, what kind of bill is needed
3. Approval of the Welsh Assembly
4. Approval of the NI Assembly
5. Approval of the Scottish Parliament
6. Approval of the UK Parliament

After this, there will be an 18 month initial negotiating period as to what the position of Britain and the EU will be after the 2 year Article 50 notification. No trade deals can be struck with any EU country, no any other country until this two year period has elapsed and Britain is out of the EU. The 18 months is to allow time for the deal to be ratified by all of the 27 National Parliaments of the EU states, and the other regional courts, all of which can veto the deal. Finally, it has to be ratified by the EU itself. The EU has never concluded trade deals within 2 years. Even when it wanted to.

Rhetoric is fine, looks good in papers and sounds good on the TV news, but then reality will come into the scene, and it will all fail. At no point has any of this been costed or presented to the country, other than some kind of cack handed attempt to stop EU nationals coming here, working, paying taxes, working in hospitals, looking after our elderly and picking fruit. All of which has a net benefit to the economy and country as a whole. How this will be plugged, other than with more bureaucracy in allowing low-skilled workers to still come and work here, if they want to. There is evidence that since June there was a drop in seasonal workers coming here to work on farms, this will probably accelerate.

Of course, the one way in which immigration will slow down is if there is a recession, and probably, leaving the EU on bad terms, or no terms, will bring about such an event. Few were saying that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market, and yet, as Brexit means Brexit, it also now means leaving the single market, customs union, and a multitude of other EU institutions that keep the country running, funds projects, funds science, help charities, and so on.

Even the PM herself stated during the run up to the non-binding referendum that leaving the EU was crazy, leaving the single market was too. But here we are , ead by idiots, dancing to Murdoch's tune. Again.